Despair
by Kweh-Chocoboco
Summary: Angeal is gone, Cloud suffers from a bad case of mako poisoning and Zack starts to break from all the pressure.


**Finally, my first clack fic! ; w ; Gosh, Cloud/Zack is my absolute favorite.**

**Plot twist, I do not own Cloud nor Zack u w u;**

**I REALLY HOPE THIS ONE ISN'T TOO CHEESY.**

**Enjoy~**

* * *

His body felt heavy. He couldn't hear a lot, it was like trying to listen to someone from under water. It took all the power he had to open his eyes just a little. He could only vaguely recall what happened. He remembered a fire, a big fire. Sephiroth, the hero he had looked up to pretty much his whole life, had set Cloud's hometown, Nibelheim, ablaze. After that, the only thing he could remember was being in a mako tube, and waking up every once in a while. He had no idea what day, or what year it was. The days after that were just a blur. He remembered Zack helping him walk, protecting him from monsters… Zack! Was Zack okay? He tried calling Zack's name, but hardly any sound left his throat. Not long after that though, he felt a hand ruffling his hair and heard that voice that always managed to calm him down. The hand left the top of his head, and lifted his chin. Two pairs of blue eyes, glowing with mako, met eachother. Cloud's however, lacked the life that was clearly visible in Zack's.

"Hey, c'mon buddy, we're going to get through this", he said, with a wide smile on his face. That was one thing Cloud always admired about Zack, his ability to stay positive no matter what happened. "Cloud, you've gotta try to drink some water, we can't have you die from dehydration now, can we?" Zack brought a bottle of water to Cloud's lips, carefully, so he wouldn't spill any, since water was scarce in this area and he had no idea when they would be able to buy more water again. With great effort, Cloud was able to swallow the water. Zack shook his head, it had been a few weeks since they had escaped from Hojo's lab in Nibelheim, but Cloud's health hadn't show much progression yet. He was determined to do whatever it had to do to get his friend to be healthy again.

* * *

He hadn't noticed he had been lost in thoughts, until his phone suddenly started buzzing. Zack opened his phone to see what it was. A mail from Kunsel.

_Hey Zack,_

_Dude, where the hell are you? Shinra sent this mail saying you were KIA, but I don't believe it. Shinra has sent those mails before, and usually it just means they're hiding something. Come on, you know you can trust me. Just please, let me help you_

_-Kunsel_

All this time when Zack had been in SOLDIER, Kunsel had been his best friend. He felt bad for his friend, he must have been worried sick. But he couldn't mail him, he just couldn't risk being noticed by Shinra. "I'm sorry, Kunsel, I wish this could've been different…" Zack closed his phone and looked at it once more with guilt in his heart, before he threw it on the ground and smashed it with his foot. If he had to do this to keep Cloud safe, he would have to do it. There was no other option. Later, when all of this was over and Shinra wouldn't be looking for them anymore, he would make sure to find Kunsel so he could apologize to him.

He took his Buster Sword off his back and sat down next to Cloud. While cleaning the sword his mentor had left him with, memories of the old days came back to his mind. "Damn… I wonder what Angeal would've done…" Zack missed his old mentor dearly, whenever he got lost, Angeal always had been there to help. Back then, he would get tired of Angeal's lectures about pride, honor and dreams. But now that he was gone, he wanted nothing more than to be able to hear those famous lectures again.

_"Zack, embrace your dreams... If you want to be a Hero, you need to have dreams... and honor." _

He would never forget those words. Countless times after Zack and Cloud had escaped Hojo's lab, those words had given him the strength to go on.

_"Use brings about wear, tear and rust, and that's a real waste."_

A few tears had started to fall from his eyes as he remembered how important this sword always had been to his mentor.

_"You're a little more important than my sword… but just a little."_

By then he couldn't stop crying anymore, and he didn't want to. All the tears that hadn't left his eyes in those past years, all fell down on Angeal's beloved Buster Sword at the same time. "Damn it all!" He almost screamed the words, they echoed in the silence of the night; the Buster Sword had fallen out of his hands onto the ground. He wrapped his arms around Cloud tightly and pulled him close to him. "Cloud… Please… Wake up! Don't leave me alone! Please!" More tears kept falling as he held Cloud, begging him to wake up.

* * *

Cloud heard Zack screaming into the night sky, he though he even heard him crying. Even though all he wanted to do was comfort his best friend, he couldn't find the strength to turn his head or lift his arm. But then he felt Zack wrap his arms around him, and he relaxed against him. Cloud felt something wet on his face, so Zack must've been crying indeed. He heard Zack ask him to wake up, despair clearly present in his voice.

Cloud couldn't bear to see Zack like this. He had saved him countless times, both before and after they had become Hojo's test subjects. He had been one of the very few in Midgar who had actually cared about him.

_"At least someone's keeping up!"_

_"Well, I'm a country boy too…"_

_"From where?"_

_"…Nibelheim. How about you?"_

_"Me? Gongaga! ...Hey, what's so funny about that? You know Gongaga?"_

_"No, but… It's such a backwater name."_

_"Ditto Nibelheim."_

_"Like you've been there…"_

_"I haven't, but there's a reactor there, right?"_

_"A mako reactor outside Midgar usually means..."_

_"…Nothing else out there!"_

_"Good news, Tseng! Me and…"_

_"Cloud."_

_Me and Cloud here are both backwater experts, oh yeah!"_

Once more, Cloud tried gathering all of his strength in his arms. _"Come on, move. Move!",_ he thought. _"I can do this!" _Slowly, very slowly, life seemed to return to his muscles. With great effort, he managed to lift his arms, and return the hug to Zack. "It's okay… I'm here." Cloud's voice was rusty because he hadn't spoken for such a long time, he was barely audible. But it was loud enough for Zack to hear him, who hugged him even tighter.

* * *

**Yay, they kind of got a happy end after all! There's no way I could write about either of them dying, you know... ;w;**

**I hope it wasn't too bad, I'm still very new to this writing thing... u_u;**


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